


Wherever You Are

by Freezeurbrain



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gay, Heart of the Ocean, M/M, RMS Titanic, Tags Are Hard, Titanic AU, Tragedy, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22486465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freezeurbrain/pseuds/Freezeurbrain
Summary: “ The man depicted in the drawing was handsome, in his late teens or early twenties, with messy hair that kind of fell over his forehead and looked like it should have been held off of his face with something. He was nude, though posed with a kind of casual modesty on a couch in a pool of light that seemed to radiate outward from his eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner in messy letters was a date- April 14th, 1912 -and a pair of initials: JD. Upon closer inspection, Angela saw that the manwaswearing something. At his throat was a diamond necklace, with a single large stone hanging in its center.“Angela Kleinman is a treasure hunter. For three years now, she’s been preparing for the score of a lifetime- a diamond necklace known as the Heart of the Ocean, supposedly lost on the infamous Titanic when the ship went down. In order to find the precious necklace, Angela seeks out a primary source- a survivor of the Titanic named Rich Goranski.
Relationships: Jake Dillinger/Rich Goranski, Rich Goranski & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

Submarines weren’t known for their vast interiors. This one _really_ wasn’t- it was little more than a cramped seven-foot sphere, with most of its space taken up by electronic equipment. There was barely enough room left in the tiny vessel to squeeze three chairs in front of the dashboard, chairs that were all presently occupied. 

In the center seat, an Asian woman with pink streaks in her hair sat hunched over the controls, humming a Beatles song under her breath as she guided the sub through its free fall down to the ocean floor. On her left, a woman with light brown skin and curly brown hair lay back in her seat, fast asleep and snoring softly. On her right, a woman with dark skin and hair in purple braids was also asleep, her head leaning against the wall of the submarine. 

The woman with pink in her hair took a look at the radar and adjusted the controls, bringing the submarine down. The vessel hit the bottom of the ocean with a loud bonk, which jarred the two sleeping women awake. “We’re here.” 

Five minutes later, the submarine was skimming the seafloor to the sound of a sidescan sonar and the heavy thrum of the engines. All three women watched out the windows, on alert as the woman with purple hair directed the driver.

“A little to the left. She’s right there, in front of us. Eighteen meters... fifteen... thirteen... you should see it now.” 

The woman driving squinted and turned to the woman with curly hair, who was watching out the window with a steady gaze. “Do you see it? I don’t.” 

The third woman’s eyes widened as she pointed out the window. “There!”

The woman with purple hair smiled and took out a camera, turning it towards her face as she began recording. “Hello. This is Malika Day speaking. I’m here with Harmony Heere and Angela Kleinman. We have just arrived at the site of one of the most infamous aquatic tragedies in the entire world... the RMS Titanic.”

Angela, the woman with curly hair, covered her mouth with her hand. “It still gets me every time.” 

Malika turned the camera to show the ship’s prow, which still towered over the seafloor just as it had done 84 years ago.

“It’s just your guilt from stealing from the dead.” The woman with pink in her hair, Harmony, said nonchalantly.

“Thanks, Heere.” Angela scoffed. “Work with me here. Malika’s recording.”

“I can edit this.” Malika said. “Don’t worry.”

“It still gets me every time.” Angela sighed. “To see the ruins of a great ship sitting here, right where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15th, 1912, after her long fall from the world above.” 

Harmony rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath, and Malika couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “God, Angela. Want some crackers for all that cheese?” 

Angela ignored her coworkers and continued speaking into the camera as the submarine continued, moving over the seemingly endless deck of the ship. The submarine seemed like a tiny bug compared to the massive size of the ship.  
“Dive Nine. Here we are again on the deck of the Titanic, two and a half miles down. The pressure down here is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a freight train if our hull fails. These windows are nine inches thick, and if they go, it’s sayonara in two milliseconds.” 

“Thanks.” Harmony said dryly. “That was _so_ necessary.”

The submarine landed on the boat deck, and Angela grinned into the camera. “Let’s get to work.”

Malika put on a pair of 3-D electronic goggles and grabbed an electronic joystick. Outside the submarine, a small orange-and-black robot detached from the hull and started motoring forward. 

The robot drove itself away from the submarine and into the hull of the ship, its twin cameras projecting everything back to the three women via a computer monitor. It moved through the first class reception room, past the remains of the ornate hand-carved woodwork that had given the ship its elegance. 

Inside the submarine, the women watched in awe as the robot passed ghostly images of the Titanic’s opulence- a grand piano in amazingly good shape, crashed on its side against the wall... a chandelier, still hanging from the ceiling by a wire and glinting in the lights. 

The robot’s lights swept across the floor, revealing first a broken champagne bottle covered in silt, then a piece of a china plate with the words _White Star Line_ printed on it, and, most eerily, the head of a child’s porcelain doll. Angela couldn’t help but shudder slightly when she saw the doll’s glassy eyes reflecting the robot’s headlights back at it. 

Malika turned the joystick, steering the robot into a corridor that had been much better preserved- a door still hung on the rusted hinges here and there. An ornate piece of molding and a wall sconce both hinted at the grandeur of the past. Then, the robot made a turn and went through a black doorway, entering a room marked B-52. 

“Now, what Malika is steering through right now is the sitting room of what was called a ‘promenade suite’.” Angela spoke into the camera. “This was one of the most luxurious staterooms on the Titanic.” 

“Heading for bedroom B-54.” Malika said. 

“Stay off the floor.” Harmony turned around in her chair to face Malika. “Don’t stir it up like you did yesterday.”

“I’m trying.” Malika sounded slightly irritated.

Inside the ship, the brass fixture of a nearly perfectly preserved fireplace glinted in the light. A crab scurried out of the way of the robot and over the smashed remains of a writing desk as Malika piloted the robot across the room and towards another door. The robot squeezed through the doorframe, scraping rust and wood chunks loose on both sides, which gathered in a cloud as the robot continued into the next room.

There were remains of a pillared canopy bed, broken chairs, and a dresser. Through the collapsed wall of the bathroom, the porcelain bathtub and sink looked almost new, gleaming in the dark. 

“Okay.” Angela watched the camera footage and pointed at something in the corner of the room. “I want to see what’s under that wardrobe door.”

“You’ve got it.” Malika fiddled with the joystick. Mechanical arms deployed from the robot and began moving debris around.

“Gently.” Angela said. “Take it slow.”

The robot grabbed a heavy wardrobe door lying on the floor and moved it to the side. A cloud of silt floated up from the sudden movement, but a dark object was visible. 

“Guys...” Malika grinned as the cloud of silt settled, showing what was underneath the door. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” 

Angela watched the monitors, and from her expression, you would have thought she’d just found the Holy Grail. “It’s payday, girls.”  
In the glare of the lights, she could clearly see the object of their quest- a small steel combination safe.

*** 

Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, on the stern of a research vessel, Angela watched as the safe was lowered onto the deck via a winch cable. A crowd had gathered, including much of the crew of the ship, the three women who had been in the sub, and a well-dressed woman in an expensive-looking suit. That woman was Cheryl Valentine, who represented the company that had provided the funds for all of this. All these people were all gathered around the safe as a documentary crew filmed, capturing the moment, while Angela grinned at the safe like a kid on Christmas morning. 

“Who’s the best?” Malika smirked. “Come on. Say it.” 

“You are, Malika.” Angela rolled her eyes, but her grin didn’t diminish. She nodded to some technicians, who set about drilling the safe’s hinges open. During the operation, Angela turned to face the camera and began to speak. “Well, here it is. The moment of truth. Here is where we find out if the time, the sweat, the money spent to charter this ship and these subs, to come out here in the middle of the North Atlantic... was worth it. If what we think is in that safe, it will be.”

Angela turned back towards the safe as the door was pried open, falling onto the deck with a clang. She crouched down, taking a long look into the safe’s wet interior... then groaned. “Shit.” 

“You know...” Malika said, even though she knew it probably wouldn’t help, “This happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered.” 

Angela glared at Malika, then turned to the cameraman filming and shoved the camera away. “Get that thing out of my face.”

Some time later, inside the ship’s lab, technicians were carefully removing some papers from the safe and placing them in trays of water to separate them safely. Nearby, other artifacts from the stateroom were being preserved as well. It was a good thing the walls of the lab were soundproof, otherwise the technicians might have been distracted from their work by the sound of Angela yelling at the video crew. 

“Listen, you send out what I tell you, when I tell you. _I_ control your paychecks, not 60 Minutes. Got it? Now go set up for the uplink.” 

As the video crew walked away sheepishly, Cheryl jogged up to Angela, holding out a satellite phone that she had covered with one hand. “The investors want to know how it’s going.” 

“ _How’s it going?_ ” Angela looked like she couldn’t even believe Cheryl was asking such a question. “It’s going like a first date in prison, what do you think?” She grabbed the phone and put on an “everything is fine” voice, the kind a kid uses when their parents call and everything is not, in fact, fine. 

“Dave, Barry...” Angela sighed. “Look, it wasn’t in the safe.” 

There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line said something. 

“No, no.” Angela shook her head. “Look. Don’t worry about it. There’s still plenty of places it could be. In the floor debris on the suite, in the mother’s room, on the C deck...” 

Angela stopped talking as she noticed something through the lab window- an object the technicians had salvaged from the safe. “Hang on a second.” 

As Angela entered the lab, a technician coaxed some letters in the water tray to one side with a tong, revealing a pencil drawing... of a man. The drawing was in excellent condition, though its edges had partially disintegrated. The man depicted in the drawing was handsome, in his late teens or early twenties, with messy hair that kind of fell over his forehead and looked like it should have been held off of his face with something. He was nude, though posed with a kind of casual modesty on a couch in a pool of light that seemed to radiate outward from his eyes. Scrawled in the lower right corner in messy letters was a date- April 14th, 1912 -and a pair of initials: JD. Upon closer inspection, Angela saw that the man _was_ wearing something. At his throat was a diamond necklace, with a single large stone hanging in its center. 

Angela grabbed a reference photo on the table- a black-and-white period photo of a diamond necklace on a black velvet display stand. She held the photo next to the drawing- it was clearly the same necklace. A complex setting with a massive central stone, one that was almost heart-shaped. She let out a relieved sort of laugh. “I’ll be damned.” 

***

Later that night, a CNN news story aired from the studio in Atlanta. Across the country, millions of viewers saw Angela Kleinman, speaking via live satellite feed being projected from the deck of the ship, and an anchor speaking from the CNN news studio. 

The anchor spoke into the camera. “Treasure hunter Angela Kleinman is best known for finding Spanish gold inside sunken galleons in the Caribbean. Now, she’s using deep submergence technology to work two and a half miles under the ocean to another famous wreck... the RMS Titanic. She’s here with us live via satellite from a research vessel in the middle of the Atlantic... hello, Angela?”

Angela nodded and smiled. “Yes, hi, Tracy. You know, Titanic is not just _a_ shipwreck. It’s _the_ shipwreck. It’s the Mount Everest of shipwrecks.”

Somewhere in California, an old man watched the CNN report on a television in his living room. The room was full of ceramics, folk art, figurines, and its walls were crammed with drawings and paintings... all things that had been collected over a lifetime.

“I’ve planned this expedition for three years.” Angela continued speaking. “And we’re out here recovering some amazing things... things that will have enormous historical and educational value.” 

The anchor nodded. “Of course, it’s no secret that education is not your main purpose. You are, after all, a treasure hunter. So what treasure are you hunting now?”

“I’d rather show you than tell you.” Angela responded. “And I think we’re very close to doing just that.”

The old man watched, with eyes that were as bright and alive as a young man’s, when a young woman wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis walked in. He turned his head and spoke to her. “Turn this up, please, dear.”

The woman nodded and turned up the television, just as the news anchor spoke again. “Ms. Kleinman, your expedition is at the center of a storm of controversy over salvage rights and even ethics. Many are even calling you a grave robber.” 

“Nobody called the recovery of artifacts from King Tut’s tomb grave robbing.” Angela said. “I have museum-trained experts here, making sure this stuff is preserved and catalogued properly. Look at this drawing, which was found today.”  
The video camera panned to show the drawing, in a tray of water. The image of the man with the necklace filled the frame, albeit blurred out slightly in a key area for live television. “This is a piece of paper that’s been underwater for eighty-four years, and my team was able to preserve it intact. Should _this_ have remained unseen at the bottom of the ocean for eternity, when we can all see and enjoy it now?”

The man’s eyes widened in awe as he took in the image. “I’ll be God damned.” 

The report continued for a few more minutes, with Angela and the anchor talking about the expedition, and then the story ended, Angela disappearing from the screen. Out on the research vessel, she immediately made her way across the deck and towards the submarine, which was already waiting for her to make another dive. She was just about inside the sub when Cheryl came running up to her, holding out the satellite phone in her hands. “There’s a call for you.” 

Angela groaned. She’d already been held back when the conversation with the anchor took longer than expected, she didn’t need another setback on top of that. “Cheryl, we’re launching.” 

“Trust me.” Cheryl said. “You want to take this call.”

Angela sighed and motioned for Cheryl to hand her the phone. “This is Angela Kleinman speaking. What can I do for you...” 

“Goranski.” A man’s voice spoke from the other end. “Rich Goranski.” 

“Mr. Goranski?” Angela finished. 

“I was just wondering if you and your team had found the ‘Heart of the Ocean’ yet.” 

Angela’s jaw dropped, and if it weren’t for how expensive it was, she would have dropped the phone. She looked over at Cheryl, who gave her an _I-told-you-so_ look. 

“Told you you’d want to take the call.” Cheryl whispered. 

Angela cleared her throat. “All right. You have my attention, Rich. Can you tell me who the man in the picture is?” 

In his home back in California, Rich nodded. “The man in the picture is me.” 

***

It had been a long and sleepless night, so Angela had practically jumped out of bed when Cheryl told her that the helicopter she’d called for was almost there. Malika did not seem as excited as she was about this new development, and she voiced this rather openly as she, Angela, and Cheryl stood on a freezing cold deck in the early morning air. Her ranting was not making the chilly wind any easier to bear. 

“He’s a damn liar!” Malika said, “A nutcase! Just like... what’s her name... the Anastasia lady!” 

“They’re inbound.” Cheryl shifted in her stance, in an obvious _Malika, we all know you don’t like this, but please keep it to yourself_ move. Malika did not get the message.

“He says he’s Rich Goranski, right? Richard Elijah Goranski died on the Titanic, at the age of seventeen. If he’d lived, he’d be over a hundred now.” 

“A hundred and one next month.” Angela said, without turning her head to look at Malika.

Malika groaned. “Okay, so he’s a _very old_ damn liar. I traced him as far back as the 20s. He was working as an actor in L.A- an _actor_ , also known as a _professional liar_.” She gave Angela a pointed look. “He moved to Cedar Rapids with his brother when he turned thirty. Never got married, never had any kids. Now his brother’s dead, and from what I’ve heard, Cedar Rapids is dead too.”

The helicopter approached the ship, forcing Angela to yell over the ungodly racket produced by its rotors. “And everyone who knew about that diamond is supposed to be dead. On that ship.” Angela pointed towards the water, as if gesturing to the wreck that lay two and a half miles below them. “But _he_ knows about it. And I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Jesus Christ.” Malika shook her head as the helicopter landed on the deck, producing a wind that blew her hair back. “Fine. Don’t blame me when this whole thing turns out to be a giant waste of time.” 

And that was how Malika ended up tagging along with Angela as she stood in the doorway of a stateroom, watching Rich Goranski and a lady wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis unpack things from a worn suitcase. 

“Is your stateroom all right?” Angela asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes.” Rich nodded, not looking up from the photographs he was setting on the nightstand. “Have you met AJ?” 

The woman he was with nodded, speaking in a gentle and slow voice. “Yes, Mr. Goranski. We met just a few minutes ago. Up on deck, remember?” 

“Oh.” Rich nodded again, but slowly. “Yes.” 

Malika gave Angela a look that said “ _Seriously? This guy can’t remember what happened a few minutes ago, but you expect him to tell us what happened over 80 years ago?_ ” 

Angela ignored the look and watched as Rich set the last photograph down on the nightstand. “There. That’s nice. I like to have my pictures with me when I travel. And Billie, of course. Isn’t that right, girl?” 

A corgi on the floor gave a yap, almost in affirmation. 

“Would you like anything, sir?” Angela asked.

“I would like to see that drawing.” Rich answered. 

And so Malika ended up accompanying Angela to the lab as well, a fact she did not look too happy about. Angela could deal with her friend’s annoyance later- right now, she was watching Rich as he stared at the drawing, which had been left in the tray of water until technicians could find the best way to preserve it. 

As Rich stared at the paper, snippets of memory flashed in his mind- a man’s hand holding a pencil that seemed to dance as he manipulated it over the paper to create the image, then the same man’s eyes, soft, but fearless and direct.

Angela looked down at the reference photo, still in her hand. “Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared in 1792. You know, about the time Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the crown diamond was chopped, too- recut into a heart-like shape. And it became _le Coeur de la Mer_. The Heart of the Ocean.” She traced her thumb over the photograph. “Today, it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond.” 

“It was a dreadful, heavy thing.” Rich pointed to the drawing. “I only wore it once.”

AJ leaned over the photograph, pushing a pair of glasses up her nose as she squinted. “You actually believe this is you, Mr. Goranski?” 

“It is.” Rich nodded. “When you’re as old as I am, you won’t look like you do now either.” 

“I tracked this necklace down through insurance records.” Angela said, looking up from the photo. “An old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was, Rich?”

Rich sighed. “Someone named Quinn, I should imagine.”

Angela nodded. “Samuel Quinn. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. And the claim was for a diamond necklace he bought his daughter, Lara, as a wedding present a week before she sailed on the Titanic. And the claim was filed right after the sinking, so the diamond had to have gone down with the ship.” She turned to AJ. “See the date?”

AJ read the date on the drawing. “April 14th, 1912.”

“If Mr. Goranski is who he says he is, he was wearing that diamond the day the Titanic sank.” Angela said, then turned to Rich. “Which makes you my new best friend. Mr. Goranski, I will happily compensate you for anything you tell us that leads to the diamond’s recovery.” 

“I don’t want your money, Miss Kleinman.” Rich said dryly. “I know how hard it is for people who care greatly for money to give some away.”

Malika raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You don’t want _anything_?”

Rich gestured to the drawing. “You may give me this, if anything I tell you is of value.”

Angela nodded. “Deal.” She crossed the room and gestured to a table, covered in objects that had been recovered from the ship. “Over here are a few things that have been recovered from your stateroom.” 

Fifty or so objects had been laid out on the table, ranging from mundane to valuable. Rich examined the objects and finally picked one up- a tortoiseshell mirror, inlaid with mother of pearl. “How extraordinary. This was mine. It looks the same as the last time I saw it.” He turned the mirror over and smiled slightly when he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass. “The reflection has changed quite a bit.” 

He set the mirror down and picked up something else- a silver and moonstone brooch. “This was my mother’s. She wanted to go back for it. Caused quite a fuss.” 

Finally, he picked up an ornate hair comb made of ebony, with a jade butterfly on the handle that was so intricately carved it seemed to take flight on the handle. Rich turned it slowly in his hand, a rush of emotions that had laid dormant for decades going over him. 

Angela saw the recognition in his face, and she couldn’t stop a smile from tugging the corner of her mouth upwards. “Are you ready to go back to the Titanic?”

***

Calling this room the ship’s computer room would probably be a very generous overstatement. It was little more than a darkened room lined with television monitors, with a single computer off to the side. Currently, the television monitors were filled with images of the wreck that had been taken by the submarine and the robot while they searched for the safe. Angela was less focused on the images and more focused on Rich, who stared at the screens as if he had been placed under some sort of spell. He seems especially enraptured by the image of the bow railing that Malika was currently gesturing to as she spoke.

“The bow struck the bottom like an axe.” Malika walked over to the computer and began to hit several keys. “Here. I can run a simulation we worked up on this computer over here.”

AJ turned Rich’s chair so he could see the screen. As Malika pulled up the file containing the simulation program, she continued to speak, her years’ worth of study on this ship and the tragedy of its sinking bubbling to the surface and overtaking her grouchiness. “We’ve built up the world’s largest database on the Titanic. Okay, here...”

AJ bit her lip. “Rich might not want to see this...” 

Rich shook his head. “No. I’m curious.”

With a nod from Angela, Malika hit a button. A time-lapse animation began playing on the screen as she narrated, gesturing to the screen at key points. 

“See? She hits the berg on the starboard side, and it sort of bumps along, punching holes like it’s in Morse code... _dit, dit, dit_ , down the side. Now she’s flooding in the forward compartments, and water spills over the tops of the bulkheads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is coming up, slow at first, and then faster and faster until it’s lifting all that weight, maybe 20 or 30 thousand tons out of the water, and the hull can’t deal, so...”

Malika made a ripping noise in time with the animation. “It splits. Right down the keel, which acts as a big hinge. Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level, but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical. And then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods, and goes under at about 2:20 AM. Two hours and forty minutes after the collision. The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. Kaboom.” She gestured to the animation, which followed the bow section as it impacted with the seafloor.

“The stern implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk.” Malika turned back to the other three people. “Cool, huh?”

Rich nodded slowly. “Yes, Ms. Day. Thank you for that fine forensic analysis. Though my experience of it was somewhat less clinical.” 

Angela looked towards Rich hopefully. “Will you share it with us?”

Rich didn’t answer, instead turning towards the monitors and watching the sad ruins far below. Inside his head, he could hear ghostly waltz music and the voice of an officer, with an English accent, calling out, “ _Women and children only!_ ”

The images filled his mind as if it had been yesterday. Screaming faces in a running crowd. People crying, praying, kneeling on the deck. Not memories, just impressions. Flashes in the dark. 

A child, barely three years old, standing ankle deep in water in the middle of an endless corridor. The child was lost, alone, crying.

Rich couldn’t help himself. He began to cry.

Seeing his distress, AJ shook her head. “This is too much for him. I’m taking him to rest.”

“No.” Rich said, with a voice that was surprisingly strong. 

Angela held up a hand, signaling everyone to stay quiet, and she kneeled down next to the older man. “Tell us, Rich.”

Rich sighed, looking from screen to screen at the images of the ruined ship. “It’s been 84 years.”

“Just tell us what you can-“

Angela was cut off when Rich held up his hand for silence. “It’s been 84 years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in.”

Angela reached out, without taking her eyes off of Rich, and switched on a tape recorder. 

“The Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Southampton, England_

_April 10th, 1912_

The gleaming white superstructure of the Titanic rose mountainously into the air, its buff-colored funnels standing against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. The pier below it was blackened with a crowd of hundreds, clustered around the great ship like ants on a jelly sandwich. Horse-drawn vehicles, motorcars, and lorries moved slowly through the dense throng. One of these vehicles was a shining white Renault, leading a silvery-grey Daimler-Benz. The cars cut smoothly through the crowd like a hot knife through butter, leaving a gap in its wake that was quickly filled up again by the sheer masses of people. The excitement and giddiness was in the air was almost tangible as people embraced in tearful farewells or waved, shouting bon voyage wishes, to friends and family on the decks above. Still others walked past the cars, streaming to board the ship. They jostled with hustling seamen and stokers, porters, and barking White Star Line officials.

The Renault came to a stop, and the driver scurried to open the door. A young, blonde man, in an expensive and impeccably tailored white suit with a matching hat, stepped out onto the pier. He was barely 17, yet his bearing and the way he looked up at the ship with cool appraisal gave him the appearance of someone far older. This was Richard Goranski. 

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Rich crossed his arms. “It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauretania.” 

A valet opened the door on the other side of the car for a woman with long, dark hair in a purple and white dress, with silk gloves stretched up to her elbows. This woman was Lara Quinn, the sole heir to the Quinn family’s fortune. She was around thirty years of age, and she carried herself like she was above the masses walking around her. With her lips stretched into a bemused smile, she looked towards Rich. “You can be blasé about some things, Richard, but not about Titanic. It’s over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths.”

Lara turned and offered her hand to Rich’s mother, a woman around forty. A society empress, from one of the most prominent Philadelphia families, Rich’s mother was a widow who ruled her household with an iron fist. “Your son is much too hard to impress, Annabelle.”

Annabelle Goranski stepped out onto the cobblestone ground, dressed in a dark blue dress and white coat. She looked up at the ship with her steely blue eyes, and it was apparent where Rich had gotten his gaze from. “So this is the ship they say is unsinkable.”

“It _is_ unsinkable.” Lara said, speaking with the pride of a host providing a special experience. “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.” 

A man walked up to Lara- her valet, a tall and dour fellow called James. Behind him stood two maids- Emma and Alyssa, meant to be personal servants to Rich and his mother. And behind the maids stood a porter, no doubt harried by the last minute loading.

“Miss, you’ll have to check your baggage at the main terminal, around that way-“

Lara cut the porter off by nonchalantly placing a five-pound note into his hands. The porter’s eyes dilated as he examined the sizable tip, and Lara’s smile dripped with false sweetness as she spoke. 

“I put my faith in you, good sir.” She turned, gesturing to James with an open palm. “See my man.” 

The porter nodded quickly. “Yes, miss. My pleasure.” 

Lara never tired of seeing the affects of money on the unwashed masses. Turning away from the porter, she took her elegant silver chatelaine out of her dress pocket and examined the clock. “We’d better hurry.” She turned to Rich and his mother. “This way.” 

Rich and his mother followed Lara through the crowd going up the first class gangway. Emma, the maid assigned to Rich, hustled closely behind them- arms laden with the things too delicate for the baggage handlers. They wove between vehicles and handcarts, past hurrying passengers and well-wishers. The crowd around them were mostly third or second class- many of the first-class passengers had chosen to avoid the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using a boarding bridge, about twenty feet above. 

They passed a line of steerage passengers- not the same as third class, but rather low-paying immigrant passengers housed in open-space dormitories -in coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examined their heads one by one, checking their scalps and eyelashes for lice. 

Two yelling steerage boys rushed past the group, shoving past Lara and jostling her. Barely a second passed before Lara was jostled again, this time by the boys’ father. “Steady!” Lara yelled sharply, grimacing.

“Sorry, miss!” The man stopped only long enough to apologize in a thick cockney accent before resuming his pursuit of the two boys. 

Lara scoffed, pulling her white shawl closer around her body in contempt. “Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath.” 

Annabelle eyed the crowd around her with the same distaste as Lara. “Honestly, Lara, if your father weren’t forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family.” 

Lara looked over her shoulder at Rich’s mother. “All part of my charm, Annabelle. At any rate, it was my darling fiancé’s grooming rituals that made us late.” 

“You told me to change.” Rich said curtly. 

“I couldn’t let you wear black on a sailing day, my dear.” Lara offered her fiancé a simpering smile. “It’s bad luck.”

Rich didn’t return the smile. “I felt like black.”

Lara rolled her eyes and turned back ahead, stepping out of the way of a horse-drawn wagon. “My father pulled every string he could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites, and you act as if you’re going to your execution.”

Rich didn’t respond. Instead, he looked up at the ship, the vessel everyone called the “Ship of Dreams”. Maybe _they_ felt that way, sure. But it didn’t feel like a dream to Rich. It was more like a slave ship, taking him to America in chains. The hull was black, iron, looming over the group like a leviathan ready to swallow them whole. Lara reached out and took Rich’s arm, with the possessive kind of grip that meant he didn’t have a choice but to take her hand and act like it was what he truly wanted to do. With movements almost practiced, the two of them walked up the gangway together.

***

The triple steam horns of the Titanic let out a screaming blast, a warning of the ship’s imminent departure. The sound echoed through Southampton- it was impossible for anyone to ignore it. The sound was almost entirely drowned out inside of a seedy gambling pub, where the place’s usual Wednesday crowd was less bothered by the history-making ship about to sail out from their harbor and more occupied by the many ways to lose money this place offered. Anyone in here who gave a damn about the ship was a dockworker who’d just gotten done dealing with hundreds upon hundreds of spoiled rich people and needed to loosen up with a drink.

Either that, or they were involved in the heated poker game taking place towards the front window. 

Jake Dillinger exchanged a glance with his friend, Heather Duke, as the man and woman sitting across from them argued. Despite the obvious differences between them- Heather being Italian and Jake being American -they had met two years ago in this very city. In no time at all, they’d become as close as brother and sister, united by a common dream- a better life in America. Or really, a better life anywhere that wasn’t the piss-stained, rat-infested shithole of London. 

“ _You stupid fishhead! I can’t believe you bet our tickets!_ ” The first of Jake and Heather’s opponents barked at his friend in Swedish.

“ _You lost our money. I’m just trying to get it back. Now shut up and take a card._ ” 

Heather leaned over and whispered to Jake. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.” 

Jake stifled a laugh, which made his opponents look up. He cleared his throat and looked down at the deck of cards in his hand. “Hit me again, Sven.” 

Without waiting for a response, Jake took a card from the pile and slipped it into his hand. His eyes betrayed nothing- a product of five years’ worth of working on his poker face. 

He cast a glance towards the middle of the table- it was piled high with bills and coins from four countries, and topping it all off like the cherry on an ice cream sundae were two third-class tickets for the RMS _Titanic_.

The sharp noise of the ship’s whistle cut through the air again- a final warning, a last chance to get onboard before the great vessel began its history-making voyage across the Atlantic.

“The moment of truth, boys.” Jake smiled, adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Somebody’s life is about to change.”

Beside Jake, Heather laid her hand of cards down on the table, and the Swedes across from them did the exact same thing. Jake, however, held his close- less to observe his opponents’ cards and more to irritate everyone at the table, Heather included. “Well, let’s see here. Heather’s got _niente_ , Lovisa, you’ve got squat, Sven... uh oh, two pair. Mhm.” 

Jake turned to Heather and let out a sigh. “Sorry, Heather.”

“What do you mean, _sorry_?” Heather’s eyes widen. “What you got? Did you lose my money? _Ma va fa’an culo testa de cazzo-_ ”

Jake interrupted Heather’s profanity-laden rant with a head shake. “Sorry, Heather, you’re not gonna see your mama again for a while...”

He slapped a full house down on the table with a smirk.

“Because we’re going to America!” 

Heather’s eyes widened, and as she realized Jake had been teasing her, she rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm. “ _Porca Madonna!_ ” 

The table exploded into shouting in several languages. Lovisa, the woman, picked up a glass of beer and threw it in her husband Sven’s face. Jake picked up the tickets off the table, looking towards the Swedes with yet another shit-eating grin. “Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair. I’m high, you’re dry, and we’re going to-“

“America!” Heather cut Jake off with a whoop as she pumped her fist into the air. 

“Yeah, buddy!” Jake slapped Heather on the back. “Going home to the land of the free and the real hot dogs! On the _Titanic_! We’re practically goddamned royalty, _maiala_!” 

Heather, who was either ignoring the fact that Jake had called her a bitch or she just didn’t care, let out another shriek of joy. “You see? Just like I told you. I go to l’America! To be a millionaire!” 

She turned to the barkeep and grinned. “ _Capito_! I go to America!”

The barkeep looked up at the two rowdy nineteen-year olds dancing around his pub like they’d just won the lottery. “No, mate. Titanic go to America. In five minutes.”

“Shit.” Jake’s eyes widened. “C’mon, Heather!”

The two grabbed their stuff- which amounted to little more than two knapsacks full of everything they owned and the money they’d just won from the poker game. Before they walked out the door, Jake turned back to the watching pub crowd. “It’s been grand!”

With that, the two friends sprinted like mad down the streets of London to get to the port in time. They tore through the milling crowds next to the terminal, shoved past slow-moving gentlemen, and dodged piles of luggage. They burst through a crowd of people onto the pier... and Jake came to a dead stop. 

The Titanic was massive. It towered seven stories over the wharf, at least, and it had to be over an eighth of a mile long. The cast-iron wall of the ship’s hull had been painted black, and there wasn’t a mark on it. This ship truly was brand-new- Jake and over two thousand others would be the first people to ride on it. 

Heather, realizing her friend had stopped, doubled back and yanked him forward. Jake was snapped out of his trance and began to follow Heather again, sprinting towards the third-class gangway. They reached the bottom of the ramp just as the officer was beginning to detach it from the top.

“Wait!” Jake held his ticket in the air, breathless. “We’re passengers!”

The officer narrowed his eyes, studying Jake and Heather with scrutiny. “Have you been through the inspection queue?”

“Of course!” Jake smiled, lying through his teeth. “Besides, we don’t have lice. We’re Americans.” After casting a glance towards Heather, he added, “Both of us.”

The officer raised an eyebrow, but gave a sigh. “Right. Come aboard.”

A quartermaster reattached the gangway, and Heather and Jake climbed aboard. The officer glanced at the tickets, and then passed the two of them through to another man who looked at the names listed on the tickets. “Gundersen. And...” 

As the man read Heather’s ticket, his eyes narrowed suspiciously at her Mediterranean complexion and long, black hair, which didn’t exactly fit the Swedish last name on her ticket. “Gundersen.” He took another glance at Jake as well- neither of them fit the pale-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed profile of your typical Swede.

Despite his obvious suspicions, he waved them both through the checkpoint. Jake grabbed Heather’s arm and smiled. “Come on, _Lovisa_.” 

The two of them rushed down the white-painted corridor, grinning from ear to ear, before the man could question either of them any more. 

“We...” Jake grinned, “Are the luckiest sons of bitches in the whole world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, the irony


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for an attempted suicide near the end

As Jake and Heather made their way onto the deck of the Titanic, the great ship let out an ear-piercing whistle, steam pouring out of its funnels like water from a pitcher. The grey clouds that hid the sun from view couldn’t dampen the mood on board, which was one of contagious, almost tangible excitement. People leaned over the railing, waving down at the crowd gathered far below on the dock as the ship began its journey out to sea. 

The mooring lines, about as big as a man’s arms, were dropped into the water. A cheer went up from the pier as seven tugboats began to pull the Titanic out and away from the quay, their little engines chugging with all their might to pull the leviathan out to sea. A wall of black metal cut through the water, sending out waves and distorting the great ship’s reflection as the ship moved down the River Test and towards the English Channel. From there, they would make their way to the open sea. 

The sea might have been open, but the third-class living quarters certainly weren’t. It was like fighting London foot traffic on a good day as Jake and Heather made their way through the hallway. Like salmon swimming upstream, they were fighting the current of people. The air was filled with shouting in several different languages as immigrants argued over luggage, or room placements, or how little space there was for so many people. Some were looking up English phrases in small books, repeating the words to themselves under their breaths. Others simply wandered the hallway, lost in the labyrinthine passageways. 

“Here it is.” Heather motioned to a door in the wall, identical to all the rest. The only thing setting it apart were the brass numbers- 2461 -identical to the ones on their tickets.

The door creaked as Jake pushed it open, revealing a modest cubicle. The walls were paneled in white wood, with linoleum floors colored a pale salmon pink. Exposed pipes ran across the ceiling, their brassy colors standing out against the stark white paint. Since they were classified as a family, their tickets stating them as husband and wife, they had been provided with a washbasin, mattresses, and White Star Line bed linens. And apparently, they would be sharing the room, too. The other two passengers were already there, a woman and man with strikingly red hair that stood out against their cream-colored skin. They eyed Jake and Heather with suspicion as the two entered and placed their knapsacks down on their bunks. 

Scrunching her nose, the woman turned to her husband. In Swedish that neither Jake nor Heather could understand, she hissed, “ _Where is Sven_?”

***

It was ironic that Suite B-52 was considered so spacious and so vast, yet Rich couldn’t even manage to avoid his fiancée in there. For God’s sake, this place had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a wardrobe room, a sitting room, _and_ a private deck, yet Lara still managed to find the exact room he was hiding out in within five minutes. 

Speaking of Lara, she was standing on the deck, speaking to Rich through the open sitting-room door. Rich refused to turn and look at her, instead opting to study the various paintings decorating the walls- all by various new artists, done in a strange new style that had been growing in popularity lately. Rich thought them quite interesting, which meant Lara didn’t share his sentiment in the slightest. 

“Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money.” Lara gestured to a painting on the wall with her free hand. In the other, she held a cigarette that she put to her lips before puffing out a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. 

“You’re wrong.” Rich stared at the portrait in question- it was all sharp angles, meant to be a portrait of a man but done in an oddly geometric style. “It’s fascinating. Like a dream, you know? Truth without logic. What’s his name again?” He leaned in, looking at the signature on the corner of the canvas. “Picasso.”

Lara is waved her hand dismissively. “He’ll never amount to anything, trust me.” She flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with her heel before turning and walking into the sitting room. “At least they were cheap.”

A porter wheeled something into the room- Lara’s private safe. Rich had never seen inside it, and he probably wouldn’t get the chance to. Lara protected that thing as if she were a dragon and it her pile of treasure. Lara looked at the porter and gestured to her and Rich’s room. “Put that in the wardrobe.” 

Inside the bedroom, Emma was already folding Rich’s clothes and putting them up. She had curly blonde hair and tortoiseshell glasses, with eyes that hadn’t yet seen the cruelty of the world. 

“It smells so brand new.” She smiled, looking around the grand room. “Like they built all this just for us. I mean, just to think that tonight, when I crawl into those sheets, I’ll be the first-“

Lara appeared in the doorway, cutting Emma off. “And when I crawl between those sheetse tonight, I’ll be the first.”

“Oh.” Emma’s pale cheeks turned crimson, and she shuffled awkwardly around Lara. “S’cuse me, Miss.” 

_Smart girl,_ Rich thought, _making a quick exit. I’d do the same if I could._

Lara clasped Rich’s shoulders with her gloved hands- she was so close that Rich could hear her heartbeat. 

“The first and only.” He couldn’t see Lara’s face, but he knew she was smiling. “Forever.”

 _Forever._ That one word. He had been doomed to spend _forever_ with the woman who was basically Satan in Chanel dresses. 

He was barely seventeen years old, but it felt like his life was over.

***

If being around one rich person was bad, being around dozens of them was worse. Sitting at the Palm Court restaurant, one of many first class dining areas on the Titanic, Rich felt like an outsider. Even dressed up in nice clothes, he knew he didn’t belong here. The a was air was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke and brandy, a choking fog that made a Rich want to cough up a lung. He knew if he did that, however, his mom would get onto him, chastising him about being _impolite_ and _setting a good first impressions_. It didn’t take a detective to figure out that she was more worried about her own reputation than Rich’s. 

“She’s the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all of recorded history.” Bruce Ismay, the managing director of White Star Line, was regaling the wealthy passengers at his table with long, unasked-for anecdotes about the Titanic. “And our shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up.” 

The “Mr. Andrews” in question was Thomas Andrews, an Irishman of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders. All eyes at the table shifted to him, which made Thomas bite his lip uncomfortably. “Well, I may have knocked the idea together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay’s. _He_ envisioned a steamer so grand in scale and so luxurious in its appointments that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is...” He gestured to the room around them, with its high-arching windows letting in the sunlight. “...willed into solid reality.”

The woman next to Rich scrunched her nose up in confusion. Her name was Jennifer Rolan, but everyone called her Jenna. Jenna’s husband had struck gold out west, making her what Rich’s mother would call “new money”. Rich liked Jenna more than he did the other passengers at this table. Maybe it was the fact that they both wore the clothes of the elite, but would never truly be one of them. Or maybe he just liked how she was the only person there with a good sense of humor.

“Why’re ships always bein’ called ‘she’?” Jenna spoke with a Southern accent that sounded distinctly out of place among the posh British accents around her. “Is it because men think half the women around them have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?” 

The table laughed, and Jenna shook her head. “Just another example of men settin’ the rules their way.”

A waiter in a crisp white suit arrived with a notepad to take their orders. Lara gestured to herself and Rich as she spoke. “We’ll both take the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce.” As the waiter moved to take the others’ orders, she turned to Rich and smiled. “You like lamb, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Jenna scoffed, looking Lara up and down with disdain. Rich liked her even more already. “What, you want to cut his meat for him there, too, Lara?” 

Lara didn’t respond, merely scowled at Jenna. After a few moments of silence, Jenna turned to Ismay. “Hey, who came up with the name _Titanic_? Was it you, Bruce?” 

Ismay looked mildly taken aback at being referred to by his first name rather than _Mr. Ismay_ , as everyone else had been calling him. But he managed to conceal this quite well as he responded, “Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury, and safety-“

“Do you know of Dr. Freud?” Rich spoke up, for the first time since he’d sat down at the table. He watched in mild amusement as his fellow diners looked around curiously for the source of the noise, eyes landing on him after a few seconds. “His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay.”

Andrews let out a guffaw and coughed, apparently having choked on his breadstick in the process of laughing at Rich’s joke. Maybe Andrews wasn’t so bad, either. Jenna, who didn’t have any food in her mouth, didn’t even try to hide her laughter.  


”Rich!” Rich’s mother looked absolutely scandalized by her son’s comment. “What’s gotten into you?”

Rich said nothing, he only stood up. “May I please be excused?

Without waiting for a response, Rich walked away, leaving the table in stunned silence.

***

It was a warm evening, which meant that Jake and Heather had decided to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air instead of remaining cramped in that sardine can of a room with those Swedes who kept examining them like they were exhibits in a zoo. He had found a wooden bench overlooking the water, and was sitting with his knees pulled up and supporting a leather bound sketchbook. This sketchbook was his only valuable possession, though most people would write it off as an ordinary book. To Jake, this tiny object was more precious than all the gold in the world.

Using a soft conte crayon, he sketched onto the paper rapidly, with sure strokes. An emigrant father and his little daughter were looking out over the water, with the kid looking up at the seagulls and smiling. Jake looked down at what he’d sketched- the image of the father and daughter, with the daughter’s little hand reaching up just as she was doing in real life. 

Someone walked in front of Jake- a crew member. The man was holding three leashes, and each leash was attached to a small dog. One of them, a small French bulldog, was perhaps the ugliest creature Jake had ever seen.

There was a scoff from next to him, and Jake looked over to see a young woman leaning against the wall of the ship. She was tall, with long, dark hair and her arms crossed over her chest. “That’s typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit.” When she spoke, her words had a strong Irish accent. 

“That’s so we know where we rank in the scheme of things.” Jake said dryly. 

“Like we could forget.” The Irishwoman watched the crew member round the bend, disdain in her expression. She turned to Jake and held out a hand. “Janis’s the name.” 

“Jake. This is Heather.” Jake gestured over his shoulder to Heather, who waved. He was about to say more, but something else caught his eye. Across the deck, at the aft railing of the promenade, a young man was standing and looking over the railing. He wore a dark blue suit jacket and brown trousers, and stood, looking down at the water. Heather and Janis were talking, but Jake didn’t hear their words. He was riveted by this young man, who stood sad and isolated like a figure in a romance novel. 

And then the man turned around. 

His eyes met Jake’s for a split second. Neither of them moved, or said anything. Jake wasn’t even sure he _breathed_ in that moment. 

The a woman in a yellow dress with long, white silk gloves came up behind the man, and the moment ended. Jake watched the two of them argue for few minutes, unable to hear any of their words but very much feeling the tension. The man turned and stormed away, with the woman following close behind.

Janis scoffed. “Forget it, boyo. You’d as like have angels fly out o’ yer arse as get near the likes of him.” 

***

Rich stared at his reflection in the vanity mirror. Composed, collected, calm- his reflection was a stark contrast to the thoughts churning inside his head right then. He clenched his fist, hands trembling-

And then, with one sweep of his hands, he knocked everything off the vanity. It fell, clattering, to the floor. With nothing else in the immediate vicinity, he began clawing at his own clothes- he ripped off his suit jacket and threw it on the ground, tore the collar of his dress shirt. It felt like he wasn’t even in control of his own actions as he grabbed a hand mirror, and, with all his strength, hurled it at the vanity. The delicate glass shattered, distorting Rich’s reflection. 

Rich was crying as he left his room. He didn’t even care about the stares he got from a strolling couple, whose mouths hung open at the public emotional display. He was crying, but he was also angry. No, not angry- Rich was _furious_. His body shook with emotions he didn’t understand- hatred, self-hatred, desperation.

Meanwhile, Jake leaned back against one of the benches, an unlit cigarette clamped between his lips. The quiet was interrupted when he heard something, something that sounded like rapid footsteps clanging against the deck of the ship. When he turned to examine the source of the noise, he saw a young man running past him so fast it was barely a blur. Not just any young man- it was the same young man as before. He was disheveled, as if in a hurry to get somewhere.

As Rich ran, his breath hitched in the occasional sob. His lungs burned, but he didn’t stop running until his body slammed into the base of the stern flagpole. The impact was so sudden that he stumbled back, the pain taking a few seconds to register. The water, far below him, was as black as the sky above. He couldn’t see so much as a blip on the horizon. 

Breathing heavily, Rich began to climb over the railing. With slow, methodical movements, he turned his body and got his heels onto the white-painted gunwale, his back to the railing.

The only thing separating him and death was a single jump. The wind chilled his skin, cutting his tear-stained face like a knife. The only sound, other than the rush of water below, was the fluttering of the large Union Jack right above him. 

“Don’t do it.”

The voice shattered the silence, and Rich whipped his head around to see. His eyes took a moment to adjust, but when they did, he recognized the young man standing before him, with his hand outstretched. The same one he’d locked eyes with on the deck.

“Don’t come any closer.” Rich grasped the railing firmly, looking the boy straight in the eye. 

“Take my hand. I’ll pull you back in.” There was a genuineness and warmth to the words that surprised Rich. 

“I mean it.” Rich said. “I’ll let go.”

“No, you won’t.”

“What do you mean I won’t?” Rich snapped. Irritation rose within him. “Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don’t know me.”

“You would have done it already.” The boy said, in logic that it was infuriatingly impossible for Rich to argue with. “Now come on. Take my hand.”

Rich’s vision was blurred by tears, but he couldn’t risk losing his grip by reaching a hand up to clear his eyes. “You’re distracting me. Go away.”

“I can’t. I’m involved now. If you let go, I’ll have to jump in after you.”

That got a dry laugh out of Rich’s throat. “Don’t be absurd. You’ll be killed.”

The young man took off his jacket, letting it fall to the deck. “I’m a good swimmer.” He bent down and started untying his left shoelace.

“The fall alone would kill you.” Rich said.

“It would hurt. I’m not saying it wouldn’t. To be honest, I’m a lot more concerned about the water being so cold.” 

Rich looked down at the black water. The reality of what he was about to do began to sink in. “How... cold?”

The young man shrugged, removing his left shoe. “Freezing, probably. Maybe a couple degrees over. Ever been to Wisconsin?”

Rich blinked, confused about how they’d gone from discussing his would-be suicide to Wisconsin. “No.”

“Well, they have some of the coldest winters around. I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once, when I was a kid, me and my dad were ice fishing out on Lake Wissota- ice fishing’s where you chop a hole in the-“

“I know what ice fishing is.” Rich said.

“Sorry. It’s just, well, you look kinda like an indoor guy. Anyway, I went through some thin ice and I’m telling ya, water that cold, like that right down there, it hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can’t breathe, you can’t think... at least, you can’t think about anything but the pain.” He took off his other shoe and looked up at Rich. “Which is why I’m not looking forward to jumping in after you. But, like I said, I don’t see a choice. I guess I’m kinda hoping you’ll come back over that rail and get me off the hook.”

Rich stared, dumbfounded, at this boy who seemed legitimately prepared to jump into freezing water to save a stranger’s life. “You’re crazy.”

“That’s what everyone says.” The boy shrugged. “But, with all due respect, I’m not the one hanging off the back of a ship.” He moved a step closer to Rich, as if Rich were a deer that could be startled by any sudden movements. “Come on. You don’t want to do this. Give me your hand.”

Rich stared at this man for a long time. His eyes were deep brown, and warm. He meant what he was saying. 

“All right.” 

Rich unfastened one hand from the rail and reached out to him. The boy smiled slightly and grasped Rich’s hand, shaking it firmly. The skin of his palm was rough and calloused. “I’m Jake Dillinger.” 

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Dillinger.” Rich tried to control his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Now that he had decided to live, the height from which he stood on was terrifying. As he shifted his footing, vertigo practically took over his vision, and his whole body trembled from the fear and stress. Then, in a horrible jolt of fear, one of Rich’s legs slipped on the edge of the deck. He couldn’t control the scream that escaped his mouth as he fell, only held up by Jake. “Help!” 

“I’ve got you.” Jake had apparently been pulled forward when Rich fell, but still he remained holding on to Rich with one hand and bracing himself with the other. “I won’t let go.” 

Rich, too terrified to take comfort in Jake’s words, frantically kicked around trying to get some kind of footing on the smooth hull. Jake lifted Rich up and tried to get him over the railing, but Rich couldn’t get any footing in his fancy shoes. He slipped back down, causing another scream to escape Rich’s mouth. 

Jake shifted his grip somewhat until his arms were around Rich’s waist, and then he finally managed to pull Rich over the railing. The two young men fell down onto the deck together in a tangled heap, spinning in such away that Jake wound up slightly on top of Rich. For a moment, there was silence, with both of them doing nothing but trying to catch their breath. Their mouths were so close it felt like they were simply passing the same breath back and forth between themselves. 

“Hey? What’s all this?!” Someone tore Jake off of Rich, and when his vision became accustomed to the blinding lights again, he saw the face of the ship’s quartermaster looking down at him. He took in Rich’s state- clothing torn, breathing heavily, with residual tears still on his face -and then looked over at Jake- the shaggy steerage man with his jacket off. Rich didn’t realize the thought process until the quartermaster was yanking Jake up by his wrists. “Hey! You! Stand back! Don’t move an inch!” 

Two seamen ran up to join them, almost as if they’d been summoned. The quartermaster gestured to Jake, then back to them. “Fetch the Master at Arms.”

 _I’ve just gotten him arrested._ The thoughts suddenly hit a stunned Rich, and his heart sank with the realization. _What a way to thank him for saving my life._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick side note here- while many characters in the film this is based off of are fictional, the character Jenna plays is based strongly off of a real woman, named Molly Brown. I strongly suggest you research her for herself, as she was an amazing woman.


End file.
